Chris Duffy, a third-year student on the BA (Hons) Illustration at Arts University Bournemouth (AUB) is celebrating as his short film, Bear Hunt, has been selected for the Annecy Festival in France.
The annual Annecy International Animated Film Festival is the world's leading event for animated film.
It's a gathering for professionals and enthusiasts to celebrate and discover the latest in animation, spot trends, and connect with creators and industry figures. The festival features film screenings, open-air events, and a marketplace (MIFA) for industry professionals.
We caught up with Chris to find out more about the film and how it feels to be part of one of the most respected festivals of animated films in the world before he’s even graduated!
Can you tell us about "Bear Hunt"? What’s it about?
“Bear Hunt is a short stop motion animated film that follows a man who awakes to screaming and visions of a bear attack. He then tracks it down to its home deep in the woods where the two meet face to face. The project is an abstract representation of confronting trauma and whether or not one can let it go.”
Where did you get the inspiration from?
“Originally, I wanted to make a retelling of a sequence from Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian; a 1985 Western novel that tells the gruesome history of America’s past through the eyes of a boy who falls in with a group of Scalp Hunters.
The book is a fascinating work of prose and commentary on humanity’s violent nature with war personified as ‘The Judge’ – a supernatural being who is the most terrifying antagonist to any story I have ever read.
Making an adaptation of this book would have been a much longer project and I was worried about copyright for sending the film out to festivals, so I decided I had to make an original story. Still influenced by McCarthy’s work, I settled on the idea of telling a metaphorical story about confronting trauma using the analogy of this man tracking and confronting a bear.”
How did you go about making it?
“The film was made with a combination of handmade stop motion puppets and 3D digital environments made in Blender, an open-source 3D creation suite that’s great for illustrations.
After watching Phill Tippet’s Mad God (2021), I was inspired to have a go at modelmaking and bringing physical objects into my digital work. I built three puppets in total with wire and wood as the skeleton. For The Man, I sculpted his head from clay but for The Bear and the third puppet, I used Blender to digitally sculpt the heads and then 3D printed them with the help of Harriet Mummery, one of our Illustration technicians.
I hand-painted the models and made the clothes and props from old fabrics and clothes. Then the idea to have them placed inside digital environments had me painting two mount boards with bright green paint to act as a green screen that I could animate the puppets against frame by frame.
Once I had shot a scene, I would bring the footage into Blender and composite it so that I was left with a 2D plane object that had the footage projected on it. I could move this around freely within blender and I made it so that the footage would interact with any digital lighting in the scene using depth maps.
I created the 3D environments using textures and assets I made in Photoshop and imported them into Blender to give it a unique look that combines both 2D and 3D.
I recorded some sounds and used others that are available on free online sound libraries for the sound effects. I used garage band to make a simple music soundtrack and with the footage all rendered I cut it all together in Premiere Pro.”
How did you find out about Annecy?
“I had heard bits about it throughout my whole time at uni, but up until the end of second year, I wasn’t really focused on animation as such. Then once I had finished this project at the beginning of third year, I asked one of my tutors, Gabrielle Cariolle, about where to find festivals to enter and she told me about AnimationFestivals.com, which has a huge list of festivals and when they are calling for entries.
I would also recommend getting a FilmFreeway account, as it’s a great platform that makes submitting to festivals easy and it’s free to register and upload your film. The entire Illustration team is so supportive and really champion getting your work out to all these different awards.”
What did you need to do to enter?
“For Annecy, you have to submit your film on their website once they are open for submissions. It's quite an easy process and submissions are free, which is a great thing for new filmmakers and students like me!”
It’s very unusual for a UK short to be selected and even more unusual for an Illustration student, rather than an Animation student to be chosen. How does it feel to be in such a hallowed position?
“I was certainly thrilled when I was notified that my film would be screened at Annecy Film Festival. I had submitted Bear Hunt to a bunch of film festivals and, originally, I was only selected for Sunrise Film Festival in Lowestoft.
Happy with the selection, I thought that might be it, but then I got an email from Annecy saying they had picked my film to be part of the WTF selection, which was incredible. The fact that my first film had even been considered for a festival as huge as Annecy was something I couldn’t quite believe.
Illustration can go hand in hand with animation a lot more than people realise, and I think that being taught in image making and composition the way that the Illustration course teaches, really allows for visually rich and interesting outcomes that perhaps you wouldn’t arrive at through a traditional animation course.
It means a great deal to me to have been selected as it affirms that there is an interest for new talent and hope for younger creatives starting out in an industry that can at times feel daunting or inaccessible. It has taught me to trust my gut and push my practice knowing that the hard work can pay off.”
Would you like to make more shorts now you’ve had this recognition?
“I have actually recently just finished my new film, Static, as my Final Major Project for third year, and I have already submitted it to a handful of festivals. When submissions for Annecy open again, I’ll be sure to enter it and hopefully I’ll be back next year!"
What advice would you offer students starting out in Illustration?
“My one piece of advice for anyone starting at AUB Illustration would be to really allow yourself to let go and try something new in terms of your process and style and listen to what the tutors have to say.
The first year is all about taking apart your way of working and approaching things differently and you should really lean into that. Your old work is always going to be there, and you can always go back to it but it's important to use the time you have at uni to explore something new.”
Chris’ new short, Static, has now been selected for the competition section of the Bolton Film Festival, a BIFA and BAFTA Qualifying short film festival. Static will be screened as part of the festival's competition program and will be eligible to be considered for awards.
Want to see more of Chris' work?
